ANAHEIM, Calif. (AP)—The Angels soaked the jersey in beer, champagne and tears, holding Nick Adenhart’s No. 34 high in the middle of the celebration he missed.

Los Angeles is headed back to the playoffs for the sixth time in eight years, and the Angels intend to go with the memory of their late teammate alongside them. The 22-year-old pitcher’s death in an April car accident roiled their season early on, but it couldn’t sink this resilient team.

Opined SoSG reader Dusty Baker:

Is it strange/ironic to be dousing Adenhart's jersey in a drunken, wanton manner given that it was that very substance that led to his untimely death? Just sayin'...

Raising a glass to the jersey would have been slightly less awkward, but as long as none of these guys got behind the wheel afterward, I guess it's OK.

More offensive to me was Brian Fuentes' actions immediately after the game. The whole team went over to the spot on the wall with the Adenhart tribute and laid their hands on it. Nice, right? But then Fuentes (and one other Angel, I think) dumped a beer on the mural and then chucked the can over the fence. Classy.

They were including Ardenhart's thought into the celebration. The beer was incidental. It's only disrespectful to those that want to find it to be disrespectful. Yes he was killed by a drunk driver. Unless the Angels were driving around, drinking, and dousing his jersey all at the same time I have a hard time finding disrespect in including his jersey in a baseball tradition.

Yes in retrospect people can dissect and use logic to identify some morbid irony, but the spirit in which it was done was, to me, 100% proper. The presence of alcohol is the only similarity between the tragedy and the celebration, but the context is completely different.